Reduced activity - Elgee - it's OVER !!

[Elgee]

From Monday, I will more than likely be on reduced activity for 2, maybe 3 months.

 

The severity depends on whether the Municipality pull their fingers out and actually send the utility bills on time. If they do, it will just be the normal week around the end of the month, and then the financial year end stuff. That shouldn't take me more than a month, if things go well.

 

However, if the Monkeypality do NOT get their *** right, it will be quite bad and it could take me 2 months (worst case scenario, 3 months) to get everything perfect for the auditors.

 

Ok that's the official version. For anyone who's interested, here's the rant :P

 

I'm a rental administrator. We (the owner of the business and I) handle about 80 properties.

 

How things work: The monkeypality send us the water & rates bills, Eskom sends us the electricity bills. These get to us around about the 25th of the month. I put them on excel (that's right - that's what I need to do all my books on - plain ole excel, programmed by moi). Once everything is ready (takes me about 3 days), I then have to make and print the Monthly (takes about a day or 2, since I have to simplify it for the boss. She works from the printed version because she can't understand the excel file). The tenants must pay their rent, serv, elec, etc by no later than the 1st of the month. We got clever in our lease agreement, and added a clause that they must phone us before they pay, to find out what they owe on utilities. Suddenly in Jan, the Monkeypality only did the readings on the 30, resulting in all the bills coming only AFTER the 1st week of the month!

 

What this means?

1) We have to deduct the rates amount from the rent before we pay the owners. Very difficult to do this, if we don't have it (insert swear words here). We NEED it, because since July last year they don't take the yearly rates and divide it by 12 ... no ... some moron decided it must be worked out on a daily basis, coupled to when the water readings are. So it's a different amount every month. So now I had to work out an average of a 31 day reading, deduct that from the rent, correct it next month, ad infinitum. I can't now just look at my rates column and say: yeah pay that amount. I have to add up how much we've received for the past few months, subtract how much we've paid, just to check that we pay what we have in hand, not more or less than we actually deducted from the owner.

 

2) Instead of a few 1 minutes phone conversations to tell people what they owe when they call, I now have to try and reach about 80 people to tell them. And then they argue with me over the amount, because it was a 45 day reading, not a 30 day reading. Average call (after being able to finally track them down): 30 minutes. Added stress level (I DON'T WORK FOR THE **** MUNICIPALITY SO STOP ARGUING WITH ME OVER THIS!!!) ... priceless.

 

3) To put it this way: this was just the first month it happened (with rumours floating that it's going to be this late every month from now on) - instead of finishing collecting all monies due, and paying them, then putting it all on the computer by about the 8th of the month, I got MOST of it done today. The 19th. On Monday I must start working on March's stuff. There are still a few people who haven't paid, because of course they spent all their money. So more phone calls and threatening letters to send. And I've just remembered that I didn't send a few owner's their monthly recons ... *headdesk*.

 

4) I don't have access to the computer all the time. The boss likes to chat on facebook, and right now she's planning her wedding (to be held in Feb next year), so I have even less time than normal as she's spending half the day googling wedding venues, etc. But the filing is almost all done! *manic grin*

 

5. We've just gotten 16 new flats in to be rented out by the 1st of March/April ... with more to come as they're built. We're advertising them ... there's a housing shortage ... imagine the amount of phone calls i must take while the boss is chatting to her new fiance or calling caterers, etc.

 

ok rant over ... lol ... just had to get all that off my chest.  :P

 

 

 

 

[Jaydena]

*hugs* Dang that's a lot on your shoulders sweetie. I sure hope it all works out and don't worry, we are here for you!

[Tigara]

Simple solution, darling. ;D Spork them! *evil grin*

 

Take care, luv! I'm always reachable if you need to rant! *hugs*

[Quisalas Selene]

I definitely support sporking the bride-to-be.  Here, we have the option of normalizing our electric bills, by taking the average of all 12 months and just paying that every month.  We haven't done it because our bills in the winter, when Christmas is and thus extra expenses, is always much lower.  Not much heat used in Florida.

 

Sorry to hear you have so much on your plate, sweetie.  You know if there's anything you need help with, you can ask me to do some of it.  *hugs*

[Elgee]

*hugs Jade & Tigs & Q*

 

Thanks, my angels - and I do love the idea of sporking the bride-to-be  ;D

 

(BTW, I've tried to convince her to just elope to Mauritius ... she won't bite  ;))

 

Anyhoo ... my biggest worry is Meet the MoN rp's. I'll be working loooong hours, and not popping online during the day much to check replies to any threads I'm participating in, so my 2 or 3 hours online per night I'll be doing that. Which won't leave much time for RP'ing during the week. Hopefully Novices will understand that I'm going to be slow in replying. I'm just going to have to prioritize. No more Gen WoT discussions, severe reduction comm side, less chatting on msn.

 

Luckily, we're heading towards Autumn and colder weather, which means my energy levels will be MUCH higher than it has during summer. Heck, I might just even out in activity level  :P

[Arani Lepenque Aes Sedai]

Ok Elgee.  I know what you're going through because you told me this over MSN already.  So if you're not going to be doing much RPing?  Could I switch a mentor for Wilemi?  Pity, because I would have liked to RP out with Esther.

[Mystica]

:( :( :( :( :( *hogs her Elgee tight*

[Elgee]

Thanks, Arani, but I'll be doing the class with Wilemi, right? That's easy enough to do and I've already started writing that up on Word at home, so first class will be up on Saturday. *snuggles for the thought, anyway*  :D

 

*hugs Myst back*

[Raeyn]

 

Is it sad that all I can think to add to this is, "Whee, we use excel for our books too!  YAYAYA!"

 

...

 

I know, I'm a dork.  But gah, hope it all works out, my sweet.  <3

[Elgee]

LMAO!

 

You, I & my Warder's wife should form a club - we all do the same work  ;D

 

edited for grammar error  :-[

[Raeyn]

 

Or very similar work, at least.  Regardless, we're freaking awesome.

[Kara_J]

Ain't that the truth! *snuggles Elgee and Raeyn*

 

Hopefully Elgee already knows I'm there for her if she needs me :)  :-*

[Jaydena]

LOL well Kara is your Assistant so she should be able to rp your MON character if you can't at any time. *G*

[Elgee]

*snuggles her sis*  :D

 

Damn straight, Raeyn  ;D

 

*grins and nods at Jade* If anyone knows me well enough to rp one of my characters, it would be Kara ... *watches poor Kara faint*  ;D

[Jaydena]

*giggles and gets out the smelling salts*

[Cleopatra Narisse]

Good luck Elgee. I hope to the higher powers that everything works out for you!  :(

[Elgee]

From Monday, I will more than likely be on reduced activity for 2, maybe 3 months.

 

The severity depends on whether the Municipality pull their fingers out and actually send the utility bills on time. If they do, it will just be the normal week around the end of the month, and then the financial year end stuff. That shouldn't take me more than a month, if things go well.

 

However, if the Monkeypality do NOT get their *** right, it will be quite bad and it could take me 2 months (worst case scenario, 3 months) to get everything perfect for the auditors.

 

Update:

 

It's the worst case scenario, I'm afraid.

 

I'm doing my best, with limited time and energy. My priorities are helping N&A, either OOC or actual RPs. I'm concentrating on the MoN RPs, the Red/BT RPs, any other RPs I'm committed to, my Accepted's RPs, in that order, and also updating Novice & Accepted reqs. I also have Admin tasks on the Org side, which I cannot neglect totally, but are taking a bit of a back seat to Div side.

 

Please bear with me if I take a few days to reply to RPs - I really am getting to them as fast as possible.

 

 

[claireducky]

No worries, hon!  Get your rest and kick that paperwork in the keester!

[Jaydena]

*hugs* Just let me know if I can help with anything sweetie, my job is support you and I can answer rps if need be, I have played MON before. *winks*

[Elgee]

Update: I'm in the final stretches of my financials, but the needed documents from the banks are late. Until I get them, I'm pretty much treading water.  >:(

 

Couple that with the FUBAR from the Municipality, and I'm heading into a month of horrors. I want to get the financials to the Auditors before the end of April, as their deadline with SARS (the Taxman) is 31 May.

 

Since I know I'm at some stage not going to be able to do any RPing on here, but I don't know from WHEN (depends on when the banks pull their fingers out), I'm not going to start any new RPs. I've therefore asked Kara to take over Meet the MoN RPs, and I'll be pressing Jade's buttons if she also gets busy.

 

I'll still be doing OOC work (updating the reqs, answering questions, etc) - I might just be slow in responding.

[Raeyn]

 

*hugs tightly*  I'll punch those darn government folks for you, I will! :)

[Arani Lepenque Aes Sedai]

We understand Elgee.  If there's any help you need, just ask.  We'll try to help as best we can.

[Elgee]

Update: I'm in the final stretches of my financials, but the needed documents from the banks are late. Until I get them, I'm pretty much treading water.  >:(

 

Got the documents from the banks today, so that's me busy for the next 2 weeks at the least. Also, the bills from the Monkeypality have STILL not arrived (should have been here around the 26th, 27th, but they only printed them yesterday) - hopefully tomorrow.

 

Please pm me if there's something needing my attention.

 

Thanks and hope to be back soon.

[Jaydena]

Good luck hun. *hugs*

[Elgee]

It's all done !!!  ;D

 

Books are balanced and sent off to the auditor.

 

On a turnover of 2,649,529.32 for the 2008-2009 book year, I made a mistake of ... 1 cent  ::)

 

And that wasn't even exactly my mistake - the boss transferred 1 cent too much from the main account to an individual trust account, but I didn't pick it up so my bad.

 

Still, not too bad overall  ;D

 

Oh yes - this means my reduced activity is over ... lol ... well, give me a few days to get my breath back  ;)